B.C. pro-life leaders are crying foul over what they charge is a rigged Health Canada consultation on medical assistance in dying (MAiD), saying it’s aimed at suppressing opposition to the legalization of advance requests as Quebec is doing.
Abbotsford MP Ed Fast said in a statement to The B.C. Catholic that he fears the consultations will advance “confusion and abuse of Canada’s MAiD regime.”
Dr. Will Johnston, a Vancouver family doctor who leads the Euthanasia Resistance Coalition of B.C., echoed Fast’s concerns, calling the consultation process “a sham” designed to deliver pre-determined support for further liberalizing Canada’s euthanasia law.
“I think the Trudeau government are true believers in many radical ideas, and radical when it comes to suicide is one of them,” Dr. Johnston said. “And I would just call it ‘radical autonomy’ when it comes to suicide.”
The issue coincides with Quebec’s enactment of a law that overrides the federal ban on advance requests. Dr. Stephanie Green, a leading euthanasia practitioner from Victoria, said during an online MAiD seminar in November 2024 that Quebec’s move will create “a certain amount of pressure” on the federal government to legalize advance requests nationwide.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has consistently condemned all aspects of Canada’s legalization of MAiD. “Euthanasia and assisted suicide (MAiD) have always been, and will always be, morally unacceptable because they are affronts to human dignity and violations of natural and divine law,” the conference said in a Nov. 2023 statement.
Johnston and Fast’s concerns centre on Health Canada’s late-November launch of what it calls a “national conversation on advance requests.”
Health Canada says on its website that the consultation process launched in November will include an online questionnaire open to the public and “virtual regionally focused roundtables” comprising “a broad range of representatives.” These engagement activities are scheduled to run until late January 2025 but as of Dec. 3 the questionnaire was not on the website.
Regardless of whether advance requests are legalized, Dr. Green has devised a strategy for dementia patients who want MAiD despite their potential loss of legal capacity. She calls it her “10 minutes to midnight” approach.
Dr. Green explained at a Nov. 21 seminar that she meets with patients early in their dementia diagnosis and monitors their condition. When she believes the patient is close to losing legal capacity but still capable of consent, she reminds them of their earlier request and, with their approval, initiates the MAiD process.
Fast accused the government of intending to “inform” rather than consult, comparing this process to its earlier attempt to expand MAiD to include the mentally ill. “The Trudeau government was likely very surprised when the [parliamentary] committee recommended that Canada was NOT ready for this expansion,” Fast said.
Johnston said he believes the Trudeau government is aware its time in power may be ending and is rushing to implement as many policy changes as possible.
